Storm on the Horizon
by Revan Dark Lord Of The Sith
Summary: An old Militia pilot is forced to step back into the cockpit to help the legendary 6-4 on a mission that could change the lives of everyone on the frontier and change the war as everyone knows it. Teaming up with an experimental new titan, LGN-7832, with a smart AI, he will have to re learn what it means to truly be a team and overcome a terrifying new threat to his home
1. Chapter 1

"Whoa easy son, you're lucky to be alive" Said the voice of what Jason thought was a doctor or something similar, he couldn't tell because his eyes were adjusting and it was all pretty blurry

He blinked his eyes a few times and his vision returned "what? Where am I?" He said in a scratchy voice

The doctor handed him some water, which he accepted and drank "you're on a Militia carrier, it's been about a week since the battle of Demeter" he explained "we're heading to Harmony to refit and refuel. Now as to why you're in that bed, do you remember anything?"

Jason searched his memory "I… Was in a dropship, we'd been ordered to pull out because the reactor was about to blow" he said slowly "but when we tried to jump to atmosphere something went wrong and the ship broke apart?"

He shook his head "I don't remember after that"

The doctor nodded "I figured as much, well it seems that when your dropship jumped out, before it did the reactor went nuclear and tore part of it off, when it hit space it got worse, the riflemen who were with you died as well but your pilot suit kept you alive for a short time"

The man sighed and continued "your Titan, the ogre class, it was already on board it's ship but when it picked up your vitals spiking it left and found you unconscious. It brought you into the pilot seat and set the recovery beacon. But it's battery was already nearly dry and well keeping its emergency life support on was draining. By the time the recovery team got to you, your Titan was completely dead, and space had fried it's circuitry, they weren't ever made to go in space" he finished

Jason took the whole story in quietly, LT… "So, LT was fried?" He asked for confirmation

The doctor nodded sincerely "yes, Titan LT-4322 is, for all intents and purposes, dead. I'm sorry, I know it's never easy for pilots to accept the death of their Titans, especially when they've been together as long as you'd been"

Jason sighed, dammit, he'd been with LT ever since he'd made pilot, they'd fought and bled as an unstoppable duo for 3 long years. And now he was dead "balls" he said quietly

"I'm sorry" the doctor repeated "in the meantime Briggs ordered you to take some time off, they're hitting the spectre factories today and they expect an easy win. The IMC will be on the defensive for a while, so that means you can take some time to rest"

"Yeah" was all he said

* * *

About a month later he was visited in his hospital room by none other than the woman herself Sarah Briggs

"Pilot Jason Badger?" Briggs asked. Jason rose to attention, sitting up and saluting "Ma'am"

"At ease captain, I wanted to see how you were doing"

Jason nodded "ma'am I'm 110% and would really love to get out of here"

Sarah smiled a bit "good to hear pilot, but that's why I'm here, now I wanted to ask you a favor"

Jason frowned "what can I do?"

"Well as you know pilots are something we'd been lacking, we had plenty of support staff. But now it seems that with all the IMC deserters we've got plenty of soldiers and pilots and not enough tech staff" Sarah explained

"And well according to your file you were a pretty good robotics researcher before enlisting"

Jason could see where this was going

"Well since we now own some pretty valuable IMC spectre factories our priority is finding ways to upgrade them and making them even better" she continued

"So you want me to come work on some kind of spectre R&D team?" Jason guessed

Sarah made a so so gesture "in a manner, the specters are the main thing it'll be working on, but we also want to expand our cybernetics in general. smarter AI, new specters, anti Titan bots, simulacrums that sort of thing. Needless to say the department is fairly short staffed and will have plenty of work. Interested?"

Jason considered it for all off five seconds "I'll do it"

"Now i know you're eager to get bac- wait you will?" Sarah asked with a bit of a confused look

Jason shrugged "I don't think I'm ready to step back into the cockpit yet"

Serah nodded "ah I see, I've known pilots who refused to ever pilot another Titan again after losing theirs. I guess I can understand now why you agreed. Well report to me at noon tomorrow, oh and for what it's worth, I'm sorry about your Titan" she added before leaving the room


	2. Chapter 2

Hello all, I was recently inspired to write a titanfall fic due to playing through Titanfall 2 again. This is my first time writing a military esq story instead of a fantasy story so I'm still working out some things.

Anyway hope you all like it, I'd like to say I'll update it regularly but I'm terrible at sticking to any kind of upload schedule. So I'll upload new chapters whenever I'm done, so it could be one every few days or one every few months

Well on to the story

* * *

"Hey careful with that you idiot you want to be stuck in another dimension?" Jason shouted to one of his workers, the man in question had been tossing a phase shift device into the air and catching it like a softball

"Sorry sir!"

Jason sighed "Bucket why'd we have to bring on all these new guys? They don't know a spectre from a stalker"

A nearby spectre looked up from a notepad "was that a rhetorical question? Because I'm fairly certain you know exactly why"

"Shut up, you're no fun" Jason shot back

"Being 'fun' isn't in my programming I'm afraid"

"why did I have to make you such a smartass?" Jason asked "don't answer that"

"I hadn't planned on it" the robot replied, but something in its tone suggested otherwise

"Sarcastic specters, times like this I miss being a combat pilot, at least then I could just shoot the specters before they could kill me with sarcasm" Jason said and stepped down from his platform

It had been a few years since the battle of Demeter, and only a few days since the incident with the fold device that threatened to destroy Harmony

Luckily some crack new pilot had saved the militias ass by destroying the weapon along with a good portion of the IMC forces defending it

"Hey Bucket how did the reaper test go?" Jason asked, they'd been working on ways to increase the reapers combat effectiveness. One idea had been to replace the electric weapons with back mounted archer missiles and deployable wrist chain guns. There was a combat test earlier but he'd had to give a report to some of the higher ups

"Ah yes the weapons tests for reapers, well against other reapers and the test Titans they outperformed the other standard weapons when deployed in packs, however there was a bit of a lesser effect against Titans when a single reaper tried to fight it"

"Not enough damage to scrap the Titans?" Jason asked

Bucket shook it's head "no while the increased firepower provided by the archer missiles was effective it proved to be too difficult for a single reaper to quickly acquire a lock on before the Titan was able to destroy it" it explained

"Ah I see, but when in packs it's easier for them to lock on and fire when the Titan was focusing on only one" Jason concluded

"Exactly, though id recommend going forth into full production with the new loadout given the increase in combat efficiency in packs"

Jason nodded "agreed, send in the report to the production teams, tell them to start phasing in the new weapons, I'll send a report to Briggs to let her know. In the meantime see about putting these new people to work"

"Major! Major Badger!" A voice called out

Bucket and Jason both turned to see a group of people entering the production floor

There were four of them

Two he knew, Sarah Briggs, head of the militia and Gates from the 6-4

With them was another man who he didn't recognize and a spectre, one with the bounce legs made for running

Which meant that it was actually a simulacrum for a pilot, interesting

"Ma'am" Jason said and saluted "to what do I owe the pleasure?" He asked

"At ease Jason" Briggs said "I believe you and Gates are acquainted"

Gates nodded to Jason "Jason, good to see ya"

"Likewise Gates, and who's the other guy and the simulacrum?"

The spectre stopped "how the hell did you know I'm a simulacrum?" It asked in a male robotic voice

"You have the mobility legs, plus you don't carry yourself like a standard spectre"

The other man with them chuckled "Looks like he had you figured out the minute he saw you Kane"

The spectre let out a bit of a sigh

"Can it you two" Sarah said "Jason this is specialist Zeke, and specialist Kane. They're combat pilots from the marauders"

"Charmed, so you going to tell me what's going on?" Jason asked

"Can we have a word somewhere more private?" Sarah asked

Jason nodded "follow me" he said and led them into an office overlooking the ground floor "so?"

"Look ill just get to the point, there's been a situation and we need you to help" Sarah said

"In what way?" Jason asked curiously

"We need you back in the cockpit, we need you to be a pilot again" Gates spoke up

"What you so short staffed you need to pull me back into it?" Jason asked with crosses arms

"I haven't seen combat since Demeter, not to mention I've hardly even looked at all the new models of Titans you guys have now, I work with Spectres for a living"

"Yes I'm aware, but to be frank we need someone I can trust and unfortunately the only other pilot I would trust with this is helping us push the IMC back so they can't retaliate for Harmony" Sarah said

"Well what's the situation? Why's it so important you pull me out of here and into a Titan again"

Sarah looked at the simulacrum "Kane?"

Kane tapped his wrist a few times, and a holographic feed projected from his head "one week ago a small militia ship picked up a distress beacon while on patrol near uncharted space" the feed showed a ship approaching a planet

"They touched down on a previously undiscovered planet and found a wrecked IMC dropship with one survivor. The survivor said they'd been sent to investigate a strange energy signature but had been ambushed by machines"

"Then, the rescue team got attacked" the hologram then showed the team start to take fire from all directions. Caught in open ground like that the riflemen stood little chance and were mowed down with brutal efficiency

Jason frowned "IMC?" He asked

"No, keep watching" then figures stepped into view, they were tall and imposing but moved like machines. They didn't look like any machine Jason had seen before. They were taller than a man, looking about 7 or 8 feet, and they were bulky. More than that was hard to tell from the quality of the hologram

"We're sending a 6-4 carrier to investigate and secure the planet as well as eliminate any hostile forces" Sarah explained

"I still don't see why you need me" Jason said

"well you're our top robotics expert, as well as a decorated combat pilot, it seemed like you were a perfect pick for the team. If these are machines of some kind we'll need someone who can at least attempt to see why they're there" Sarah told him

Gates nodded "I also asked for you to accompany us, we could really use you Jason"

Jason crossed his arms and sighed "fine I'll go, but I'm bringing Bucket and some of my bots too"

"I think that can be arranged" Sarah nodded "the ship leaves tomorrow, Gates will bring you up to speed on your pilot training"

"Training?" Jason asked

"Don't worry, we're just going to get you situated with how the Titans run now" Gates explained "Oh and we've got a special Titan for you, but that can wait, meet us at the docks tomorrow with any staff you're bringing"

"Hm, well alright then, ill see you tomorrow" Jason said and started to walk off

"Later Jason"

"Bucket, get your best combat bots and bring them to the docks tomorrow, we're going on a mission" Jason shouted to his spectre partner as he walked back into the main room

"Affirmative, may i inquire as to why?" Bucket asked

"Looks like there's some robotic anomaly that needs our expertise to take a look at, other than that i dont know, so be prepared for anything" Jason explained "i got a bad feeling about this, go get some down time"

Bucket nodded and walked off

Jason stared out at the production floor as he pondered the days to come


End file.
